Identity and Marginality Among New Australians Religion and Ethnicity in Victoria's Slavic B... Book

Argument is that there is a category of 'religion' across China called "popular religion" that both can be compared to and contrasted against the political system of empire. Hence, 'metaphor' in the title draws attention to the fact that local religious systems and imperial ideology superficially resemble one another, on the one hand, but also diverge to an immense degree on the other.

Draws from a wide range of source, sociological surveys of the mainland from the early 20th century; sinological and Daoist studies standbys (Strickmann, Schipper, Stein); studies of both empire (Hamilton; Dutton) and local society (Duara); but rooted in village fieldwork in late 20th c Taiwan and China (Wolf, Sangren, Lagerway, etc.), and especially of Feuchtwang's time in Taipei valley in the late 1960s.

Methodological introduction is pretty interesting - on how rituals make history differently than record, on the importance of considering 'belief' in theorizing religion, and on how to think through Durkheim.

Sometimes sloppy or confusingly written - lots of passive voice for instance hides positionality of SF's informants. Would benefit from maps and charts of SF's fieldsite and festival calendars. Unclear how one gets from close observation of religious life in one Taiwanese village near Taipei to positing that "popular religion" is everywhere of the same essence or function.